Dandelion -Jiyeon Route Review-

Ok, so I had to do a route review for Jiyeon, simply because this route makes me want to rant to high heaven. Jiyeon is one of the two cats in the group, the orange cat, and is the "goofy, happy go lucky" character out of the bunch. His route was honestly one of the routes I thought I'd enjoy the most, since I tend to like the goofball guys, but by the middle of his route I found myself cursing at him and the MC and wanting to smash my head against my desk with how much I started to hate his character. This review may contain spoilers, so read on at your own caution (Review contains spoilers, possibly major on his personality, about his storyline. Major spoilers, like his character ending and "tragic past" will be at the end, marked as major spoilers, for those who want to know)

Anyway, as I stated, Jiyeon is the silly, childish one of the group. As a cat, Jiyeon is always being cute with the main character Heejung, loves oranges, and oddly enough loves hopping in the bathtub with Heejung (Seriously, like 90% of the time his character was in the bathroom during the simulation part and you'd almost always encounter him using the tub)  After he transforms into his "cat boy" body, Jiyeon has pretty much the same personality; He leaves orange peels all over the house, constantly tries to convince the MC Heejung to let him bathe with her, and talks and acts in a cutsey, childish manner, and even uses wrong words in sentences. While his exact age isn't given, he's hinted/ guessed at being around 18 years old or so.

No, that is not a typo (The MC always corrects him/comments about the seeming "typo"), he seriously speaks wrong words in phrases. (Like Jiyeon asks Heejung why shes "signing" and Heejung asks him if he meant "sighing") At first the MC ends up believing that the magic that transformed him is either weak or Jiyeon hasn't quite gotten a grasp on Korean, I figured it to be the latter since the other animal guys speak perfect Korean after transforming.  You later find out that he knew perfect Korean the entire time though and "mixed" up words on purpose to seem cute. -_-

Everything's hunky dory and I actually really liked Jiyeons cuteness up until the point Heejung goes outside the house and finds Jiyeon telling a tale of woe and misery (total, utter lies) to a couple of old ladies from the apartment complex; Basically, turning tricks of a sort. (Not the prostitution kind) The old ladies end up feeling so bad for him that when he comments about steaks, they both trip over themselves offering to cook him steaks.  Heejung, of course, is wondering why the hell Jiyeon would do such a thing when he is well fed at home. It smelled a bit fishy, but at first I figured maybe he wanted steaks and didn't want to bother Heejung. Though to trick some old ladies to get some...Although they seemed pretty stupid....I mean seriously, they believed his hair turned orange cause all he eats is oranges?  The hell????

Alrighty then. So Heejung puts the old lady event kind of in the back of her mind and life continues. Jiyeon continues to act cute as hell, and Heejung begins to show more and more favoritism to Jiyeon (Much to the rabbits' annoyances) His route actually has some pretty funny moments early on due to his "innocence". found myself laughing and smiling a lot in most of his earlier events. As Heejung and Jiyeon get closer, things just get even cuter and funnier and I found myself really cheering for them and hoping Jiyeon would realise Heejungs growing feelings for him. Alas...This happy feeling over this character was not meant to be.

More "odd" events start to happen as we get into around the middle of Jiyeons route which really starts to rouse my suspicions. Then, shit finally hit the fan when Heejung goes to chill out at the coffee shop and have some coffee and she spots Jiyeon coming into the shop with...another woman. (DUN DUN DUN) So naturally, Heejung finds a nice spot in the coffee shop to hide in and spy on Jiyeon and his mystery woman. The conversation that ensues ends up setting off my "bullshit" alarm. After this event, I'm pretty sure Jiyeon is sleeping with a bunch of random women for money/material goods.

Heejung doesn't say jack to Jiyeon about the incident, but instead self ponders and gets depressed over the incident.  Way to go Heejung, good job avoiding problems! To boot, Jiyeon starts getting more sweet and touchy feely with Heejung but when she tries to coax Jiyeon into talking to her about whats going on with him, he pulls the "lets just be friends and nothing more" card, or in his words he wants to stay as her "pet" and her his owner. Heejung heart starts breaking from this and reluctantly agrees with Jiyeon when he presses her to agree with him that's how things should be. But then the bastard goes and buying Heejung an EXPENSIVE DESIGNER BAG.  The hell? Oh, and then a smiley face orange, much better.

Later on, Heejung ends up making steak for dinner one night (Steak being one of Jiyeons favorite foods that he has only mentioned to the women Heejung has caught him lying to and messing around with). Finally, we have our confrontation about the coffee shop when Jiyeon tells Heejung he knew she was spying on him when he was buttering up the old ladies in front of the apartment and the woman at the coffee shop. He then proceeds to subtly threaten Heejung if she follows or spies on him again, leaving her to go off on one of her inner depressed rants again. Now is the start of asshole Jiyeon! Jisoo walks into the kitchen after Jiyeon storms off and tells Heejung to watch out for Jiyeon.  I seriously wish this chick would have listened, but nope, her idiocy wins out.

So, being the curious little idiot she is, Heejung one day opens up Jiyeons wallet after he accidentally left it on the floor and finds a photograph of him and some old lady. Jiyeon then barges back into the house to retrieve his wallet and catches Heejung and then proceeds to go batshit asshole on Heejung, mocking her and essentially shoving a giant knife in her heart.  This was the event that just totally made me start disliking the guy. He continues his jerkwad ways even when Heejung tells him that shes worried about him and he pulls the whole "Like I give a shit" act. GRRRR! No more cute kitty.

After this, Heejung starts becoming visibly depressed to the point all of the other animals (Should I call them animal men? Haha) start noticing and make comments about it.  Jihae (<3~) being the super sweet gentlemen he is, expresses the most concern for Heejungs current  emotional state.  During dinner, Heejung gets a call from some unknown guy about Jiyeon being in trouble and, in true stupid heroine fashion, rushes to Jiyeon. She then comes to an alley where she finds a bloody and beaten Jiyeon and an unknown man. The unknown man tells Heejung that Jiyeon tried to steal from him and lots of dialogue later, blackmails her for a huge sum of money to compensate for his "emotional trauma" from the event. Heejung, scared that the man will call the police on Jiyeon after beating the crap out of him some more (And again, in true dumbass heroine fashion), agrees to pay the man his money in a few days.

More angsty jerkery to Heejung, who is only trying to help Jiyeon out.  Ungrateful jerkwad D=. A few days after the incident, Jisoo confronts Heejung slightly as to whats going on. The guy is actually spot on as to the events that transpired and gives Heejung his advice and take on the situation. I wasn't too big on Jisoo's character so far, but this scene kind of sold Jisoo a little to me because he came off as genuinely caring about Heejung, not just trying to get her to change her mind. (He tries to turn Heejung's affections towards him in a good chunk of the routes) Sadly, Jisoo's advice goes through one ear and out the other, and Heejung proceeds to do one of the hardest things for her to save Jiyeon...She calls her mother for the money.  Heejung should of freaking listened to Jisoo. I seriously hate how stupid and idiotic Heejungs actions are in this route.

God, this is getting so long, going to try and condense some of my rant to prevent this from being the longest page in history. Getting money from her mother has a price, but her mother ponys up the dough and Heejung pays the guy. After having been absent from the house since the incident in the alley, Heejung comes home to find Jiyeon on the couch flipping through her sketchpad.  Heejungs heart leaps for joy, but Jiyeon begins to berate and mock Heejung for having feelings for him. After flipping out on her some, he ends up shoving her against a wall and comes pretty close in my opinion to raping Heejung (If this was an 18+ game, I'm pretty sure he would have). While still berating Heejung, he painfully holds her arms against the wall and forcefully and roughly kisses her after asking if this is what she wanted. Yeah, this totally would have lead to rape if this was 18+

This event just totally made me lose any remaining fussy or positive feelings for Jiyeon and made me find the heroine even more stupid. Jiyeon threatens her some more before unpinning her against the wall, leaving a bruised and hurt Heejung cowering on the floor.  And yet...SHE STILL CHASES AFTER HIM. (*^&*^&%^$^#. I know there are otome players who like the "rough and cruel" character routes (Not to be mixed up with Tsudere characters) where the guy is only cruel because of a tragic past and he doesn't want to hurt the MC because he loves her so much, so he attempts to push her away with horrible acts of cruelty and emotional abuse and with the power of love the MC "brings them around", but I hate them. I loved them when I was younger, but through events in my life I have found that cruel men like that are assholes cause thats how they really are and its not going to end in "sunshine and rainbows".

Sure, this is a game and anything can happen and the whole point of an otome game is fantasising, so we can enjoy the scenario, but I just can't and so I end up hating the male character and finding the MC incredibly retarded for still chasing after the guy even after he abuses her multiple times because she loves him and thinks thats not the real him.  I found myself yelling at the screen "Just get the hell over him and walk away!" and smacking my forehead repeatedly through this "phase" of the route. I don't like dumb bitches or emotionally abusive assholes, and this route encompassed both. I mean, Heejung gets so emotionally messed up over this that she breaks down crying when she sees a box of oranges...Sheesh.  Why doesn't she just fall into the arms of sexy Jisoo!? (Or delicious Jihae <3~)

One night, Heejung ends up passing out in her art club room and wakes up half asleep to see Jiyeon.  Thinking hes a dream, and not caring if he is or not, she spills her heart and feelings out to Jiyeon. And then Jiyeon proceeds to have an emotional breakdown, again, but this time in the form of a sobbing confession instead of heart stabbing abuse. He tells Heejung that he was afraid of Heejung getting close to him because he is just a "piece of trash" and everyone he has gotten close to has become miserable and hurt because of him. So instead of threatening her, Jiyeon appeals to Heejung to just forget about him because in the end she will only be heartbroken.

Heejung then confesses her feelings for Jiyeon and tells him she can't just leave him alone and forget about him, and tells him she doesn't care if she becomes miserable; The pair then go back home together, like all of that jackassery never happened.  Pfft! Jiyeon then reverts to the "real" Jiyeon, whose personality is in the middle of the previous two personalities we've seen, the cute kitty and the ass; Not too cute, not too serious.  Totally not redeemed in my book.

This game is really full of subtle, sometimes not so much, dirty jokes and comments. Oy, manwhores. Now we get to some stuff that I kept wanting Heejung to finally confront Jiyeon about, but she was all like "Boo, nooo, he'll talk to me about it when he's ready" and crap. Jiyeon asks Heejung if she wants him to say goodbye to all of his "girls" and end his "playa" ways (*eye roll*), to which Heejung asks Jiyeon why he was with the women if he didn't like them in the first place. He basically admits that it was for expensive food and money (Yep, manwhore). Heejung then makes Jiyeon promise that he will never take money or steal from another person again, and that he can't see any other girls anymore.  Thank god she at least FINALLY grew a bit of a spine and didn't just let him walk all over her and do whatever the hell he wanted cause she finally "had him".

Jiyeon then asks Heejung to promise to him in return that if he ever disappeared suddenly, that she would go looking for him and make an effort for them to stay together. Heejung ends up going and telling her mother to go screw herself basically and pays her back the money she loaned to Heejung to bail Jiyeon out of trouble.  After Jiyeon comments to Heejung about her conversation with her mother, Jiyeon ends up opening up to Heejung and finally tells her about his "tragic past", which is behind the reason for his actions and beliefs. (I'll talk about this in major spoilers for those who want the meat and potatoes of the route spoiled) Its a really sad story really, and I teared up a bit and sympathised slightly, but at this point I had such disdain for Jiyeons character that this "unveiling" just couldn't lead me to forgive Jiyeon for "cruel mode". After this, most of the events start to involve how his ending is going to go, so I won't spoil it in this section. Before the ending events and scene, we get a lot more lovey dovey Heejung and Jiyeon, and finally a sweet and consensual kiss.

In closing, for me, Jiyeon was probably my least favorite route out of this game, including Jiwoo, the tsudere route (I'm not big into tsudere characters). Material wise, it was a -good- story/route, but as I ranted on and on, Jiyeon's abusive phase just totally killed any kind of fuzzy enjoyment I could of had from the end of this route.  If you like the cruel but deep down sweet character archtypes, then you'll more than likely like Jiyeon's character route, because it was chock full of emotional abuse and tragedy turned into sweetness by the power of love, so to speak. Maybe if Jiyeon had been a tsudere instead of...this, I would have enjoyed his route more. I doubt I'll even go back to get his bad end event, because it'l probably make me rage like crazy.

Route Info:

10 CGs (Plus 3 variations) (All from Good End)

24 route events (Includes one "bad end" event and does not include common route events)

Full Review of Dandelion ~Wishes Brought To You~ Here

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW (Tragic past, wish, and ending information)

Past: During Jiyeons past scene, Jiyeon tells Heejung that he was an orphan who grew up with other abandoned cats, who had to steal and manipulate people in order to survive. He tells Heejung that he pickpocketed while living with her because he did not want her to get close to him and him hurt her, so he planned on moving out as soon as he could; He put up the cute act because he thought if he did so, he could stay with her longer, but when he realized he started to like her, he became scared and did not want to hurt another good person again.

Taking out the picture of the old lady from his wallet, he begins to tell Heejung the story behind the lady, the only person who has ever been kind to him in his life. When he was still in his "cat gang", his best friend Kain tried to plan a coup against their boss and Jiyeon refused to be a part of it because their boss had helped raise Jiyeon. Despite Jiyeon's refusal, Kain staged the coup anyway and attacked their boss and Jiyeon ended up getting hurt attempting to protect their boss. Due to this, Jiyeon became a target to Kain and his newly formed gang, and while wounded, Jiyeon flees with  them hot on his trail.

Unable to run due to his injury, Jiyeon hid in a nearby house, where he is found by an old woman, who feigns ignorance when Kain's cronies ask her if she had seen an orange cat. Misguiding them to a hill, the old woman offers Jiyeon a place to stay for the night because he reminded her of his son. After seeing his wounded leg, she tells him to stay with her until his leg heals.  For the first time, Jiyeon had warm meals, a cozy bed, and unconditional love; He had a family, something he had never had before. By the time Jiyeon's leg had healed, he had become attached to the old woman, and so he continued to stay with her, until one day he came home to find the house on fire with the old woman dead and Kain waiting for him. After that, he vowed to avenge the old woman and that he would never trust another as he had trusted her. This was why he did not want to let Heejung in; Because he did not want her to share a similar fate and get hurt because of him.

Wish: Jiyeon's initial wish coming into the Game was the death of Kain in the name of revenge for grandma. When Jiyeon sees the wizard near the end of the Game, he does not plead with the Wizard to change his wish, but tells the Wizard that he is sure he will meet Heejung, the heroine, because Heejung promised Jiyeon that she would do anything to see him again if they were ever separated.

Ending: On their final night together, Heejung and Jiyeon enjoy a romantic night of fireworks and stargazing on the beach, where Jiyeon once again makes Heejung promise that if he were to disappear, she would keep searching for him (He cannot tell her he is going back to his world since he is the Game's winner). When Heejung wakes up, she finds the house empty and Jiyeon gone. Thinking he had gone out for a bit, Heejung begins to prepare lunch...But Jiyeon never comes.  After an unknown amount of time, Heejung appears before the Wizard, who tells her that Jiyeon is now back on his world, and he can bring him back to her world if she pays his price; A part of her memory. After making Heejung wait and suffer a while so he can watch her misery, the Wizard grants her wish. Heejung forgets all about Jiyeon, the other animals, and the wizard himself.  Two months later, on the beach while Heejung questions her memory loss, Jiyeon finds her and teases her about her promise that she would never forget him. Confident, Jiyeon tells a confused Heejung that since she can't keep the promise, he will, and that he will never leave her side again.